Residents of a Siberian town are pushing for an 18-month-old cat named Barsik to become their new mayor.

According to an unofficial poll on the Russian social media network Vk, the cat won 91% of the 5,400 votes against 6 human rivals running for mayor of the town of Barnaul. A crowdsourcing campaign was also launched to raise money for a billboard that would say, "Only mice don't vote for Barsik!" with a picture of the cat.

Despite winning the popular poll vote, Barsik can't actually get elected mayor, and not only because he's a cat; the mayor is appointed by regional governor Alexander Karlin and the city council - not Barnaul's 700,000 residents.

Electing a new mayor seems to be a sensitive subject for residents of Barnaul, whose last mayor, Igor Savintsev, resigned amid fraud and embezzlement charges. It's pretty clear that, with 91% of residents' votes going to a cat for mayor, the town has been pretty fed up with its lack of true leadership.

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